


Warlock in Everytown

by EmergentOmens (Janus13)



Series: To The World [1]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Gen, School Shootings, White Privilege
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-06
Updated: 2019-10-06
Packaged: 2020-11-26 05:43:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20925116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Janus13/pseuds/EmergentOmens
Summary: There is a shooting at Warlock's school, and the first person he calls is Nanny. Crowley realizes how wrong it might have gone teaching a privileged American boy that he is destined to command the armies of Hell.





	Warlock in Everytown

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! This is my first fic ever ever ever. I'm planning to write more in this series, so stick around or follow me on tumblr @emergentomens if you stan adrienne maree brown or want more ineffable husbands as barely competent social justice warriors. Also LMK if you think anything needs tagging differently. So you know my biases: I'm white, cis female, invisibly LGBTQ, class privileged, non disabled, Christian-adjacent.

Crowley's mobile was ringing. This was strange, since Aziraphale was the only one who had the number, and he was standing right there. Crowley knew, of course, about telemarketing and autodialing, having received a Hellish commendation for it despite not actually having anything to do with it. It probably was a telemarketer. He was still salty at the last one for letting Hastur out of his answering machine. Despite the fact that that particular telemarketer and her entire company were now nothing but skeletons picked clean by maggots, Crowley still felt that he had a personal score to settle with telemarketers in general, which this caller no doubt was. He answered, already plotting what he would do to low-level ruin the person's day. He didn't really need to now that he no longer worked for Downstairs, but old habits died hard. 

"Hello?" 

"NANNY!" howled the voice on the other end of the line, full of anguish. "Oh thank God this worked." 

There was only one person who called him Nanny. "Warlock? What - how did you get this number?" 

"I don't know, I just didn't know who else to call. There's been a shooting." 

"A what? Where are you, Warlock?" 

"At school. The police got him, they just now lifted the lockdown. I don't know how many - " his voice fell apart into a choked sob. 

Crowley looked wild-eyed at Aziraphale, whose ice cream was beginning to melt and who stared back at him with equal paralysis. Fuck, what do I do? Raising Warlock, he had been completely sheltered from actual hardship by his parents' privilege and Crowley's assumption of his immense forthcoming power. Nanny had soothed him after a few childhood tantrums, but nothing with real consequences. Crowley took a deep breath he didn't need, except he really did need it. "Ok. I'm here. Nanny's here. Warlock… are you hurt?" 

"No, of course not, I still have Secret Service protection. Though anyone who is trying to use me to get to my dad should know not to bother, now that he has a new family…" there was a human bitterness that Crowley had never heard before in Warlock's voice, usually full of every bit of his privilege as a rich white American boy. 

"Oh. That's…good." Crowley didn't quite know what to say. 

"No, it's not good, Nanny, it's not ok." 

"Of course not, Warlock, I didn't mean…" 

"He was my friend." 

"Who was? A…" don't say victim, don't say victim…

"The shooter. Travis." Such an American name. Of course. It was coming back to Crowley now, he vaguely recalled seeing something on the news about the scandal with the American ambassador to Britain's secret second family and Harriet returning to America with Warlock. Crowley hoped she had come off well in the divorce, at least. In between sobs, Warlock was still babbling in his ear, a dam seeming to have burst. "I mean, sort of a friend, I've only been here six months, but with a name like Warlock people aren't exactly lining up to be my friend here. And Travis didn't have many friends either. He was kind of, like, angry? All the time? But it seems like that's normal for Americans? And we would play Xbox at his house and talk about girls and one time he showed me his dad's guns and they weren't locked up or anything, we went to the back of the house and practiced shooting them and I probably should have realized then that he was a loony and told someone, or rushed him or maybe tried to reason with him instead of just hiding with the rest of these kids, oh God, what if this is my fault for not telling anyone? Nanny? It's my fault. I'm It's all my fault. You always said I had power, Nanny, and I did nothing and now people might be…." He couldn't finish the sentence. 

All Crowley could think to say was oh Warlock, we had the wrong boy. You never had powers. But even an idiot like him knew that this was not the time for that little tidbit. So he just made Nanny noises: "there, there, poppet, it's going to be all right, you've had a shock, I'm so glad you're ok." He made a pleading look at Aziraphale, still at a loss for how to fix things for the boy they helped raise, the boy they loved, in a way, though he had never expressed that he loved them back. And yet. In the most traumatic moment of his young life, Nanny was who he reached for, and he wanted it hard enough that he got through, even though he didn't have Crowley's phone number and was not magic, at least not the way the real Antichrist was. That was a puzzle for later. Aziraphale huffed, and the look in his eyes was at once both soft and scared, and glinting of steel like a flaming sword. He motioned for the phone. 

"Warlock? It's Brother Francis." 

Warlock hiccuped between sobs, surprised. "Brother Francis? Are you… with Nanny?" 

"Yes, dear boy," Aziraphale replied, and couldn't help grinning at the implication that was just barely there in Warlock's words. "Now, you listen to me. I've been listening to you talk to Nanny and I want you to be kinder to yourself. These things… happen. They are awful, but they happen, because human beings have free will. It happened too fast for you to do anything about it. Travis is in custody and won't be hurting anyone any more. But it is far, far from over. Now the question is, how are you going to use your free will, and your power?" 

"I DON'T KNOW" wailed Warlock. "I never did start doing all the stuff you said I would be able to, like talking to animals. Do you… do you think I needed a shock to kick-start my powers, and now that I've been in danger I'll be able to use them?" he asked weakly, hopefully. Warlock had been reading a lot of YA fantasy. 

"No, dear. I mean the fact that your father regularly meets with the American president." 

"Oh." There was a long pause on the phone. "I… I don't know if he'll listen to me. He still thinks of me as… such a kid, you know? And I don't even know if he wants to talk to me, after what happened with Mom." 

Aziraphale's voice was so kind, even though Crowley could hear his heart breaking for Warlock. Perhaps we shouldn't have lost touch with him after the Apocalypse didn't happen. Even if he was the wrong kid, even if it was a waste of 11 years… he still needed dads. Parents. Whatever. 

"He's still your father" said Aziraphale primly. "I know that family can be difficult, but you don't just stop being connected because you're cross with each other. They're … part of who you are." He may or may not have been talking just about Warlock at this point. "Even if they aren't going to listen, it's important to make your case. Because they are the ones who can… y'know… call it off." 

Crowley's head had stopped spinning a bit, and he started getting a bit of an idea of his own. "Az - Brother Francis, as always, your advice is fine for if you think that following the rules will do any good. But do you really think that this American president will listen? He's a narcissistic fool. He doesn't care about asking nicely, or about personal tragedy. And your dad is his employee, and we've seen how he treats his employees. But, Warlock, you don't have to get your dad’s permission. You already know that he's going to be too focused on preserving the status quo. But you can make it difficult for him to sweep this under the rug. You can ask your own questions. You can refuse to accept things how they are." Now who was not entirely talking about Warlock?

"You mean… like the Parkland kids?" 

"Exactly! Still use who you are, but not just to ask nicely. Tell your story. Your school is probably one of the safest in the country - you have literal armed boyguards - if it happened there, it could happen anywhere." 

"Yeah. And… I don't think anyone else is talking about having been friends with the… shooter. Gunman. He still couldn't say it, and letting it hang in the air unsaid was worse. He would have to work on that… "Travis. We talked a lot about his other friends on the internet, it sounds like they had some really sick ideas. He tried to get me to agree with him about some really awful stuff, like women being dumb sluts, or white people having better genes. He said it like a joke but I get the feeling that was because he knew it wasn't really okay and was testing me to see if I was willing to go along with it. Like if I was really his friend I wouldn't go against him. I feel like… it's awful to say this, but I feel like I see where he's coming from. He was told he was the most powerful type of person, and then he learned he wasn't. And he saw it as, other people were trying to take it away from him, what was his by birthright. I've felt that. Sometimes I still do." 

Oh. OH. The upbringing they gave Warlock, that he, Crowley, specifically gave Warlock, the ideas about the power of Hell being his to wield, would have prepared the real Antichrist to be Satan's son in nurture as well as nature, the second coming of Lucifer Morningstar, persuasive and beautiful and ferocious in pursuit of Hell's victory. Those ideas in the brain of a human, American teenage boy were terrifying in an altogether different way. Given what someone without them, who merely feared slipping in the human pecking order, had just done. "Warlock I'm so sorry." He knew it wouldn't convey everything he was sorry for, and maybe Warlock would miss entirely that he was sorry not just about the current moment but all 11 years and perhaps all six thousand. He hadn't even really wanted the Antichrist to be Hell's great champion, he had mostly just not wanted him to be Heaven's because they were a bunch of wankers and altogether too eager to have a war. 

"It's all right," said Warlock carefully, clearly catching at least a bit of the subtext. "You - well, you and Brother Francis together - hearing the different sides from both of you - gave me a choice. I saw that it didn't have to be that way. I could just be … part of things. With Brother Spider and Sister Slug. And I could do what I wanted, and what I want is to make things better. And I don't need to… be in charge… to make things better. Honestly, I'm only 14 and this stuff is really complicated! And my dad knows a bunch of it and he's even exhausted and confused a bunch of the time and has to keep explaining Brexit over and over again in simpler words to the President. If that's what power looks like, I don't want it." He paused. "I always had a feeling there was something going on between you and Brother Francis," he said, sounding almost happy. "You coordinated your lessons a little too well to be JUST a nanny and a gardener. Are you… happy together?" 

"Very," said Aziraphale warmly. 

"Can I come see you some time? My dad's supposed to get me for summers, and I bet they are going to be eager to get me out of America for a little while after this. Where are you living?" 

More meaningful looks. "Um, Soho." 

"Wicked! They never let me go to Soho when I lived there!" 

"Well… all right then. But I have a feeling you're going to be very busy if you want to be part of the campaign. And… give yourself time to heal, ok? You probably want to do something right away, and that can be healthy, but getting humans to change their minds is a long hard slog. It's going to be very hard before it gets better. Remember Brother Slug, right? It's ok to be soft and go slow." Crowley knew he was reaching, this was not his metaphor, but he had learned a few things from Aziraphale in the time since the Apocalypse-that-wasn't. Aziraphale squeezed his hand. 

"Thanks, Nanny. Thanks, Brother Francis. I… I love you both." 

"And we love you, dear boy. Now… go give 'em hell." Crowley raised his eyebrows at the expression coming out of Aziraphale's mouth. But, they had always had more in common than an angel and a demon should.


End file.
